


Stolen Time

by Kaylieshorthalts



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers for episode 115
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 09:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12554020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaylieshorthalts/pseuds/Kaylieshorthalts
Summary: In which Scanlan recalls the many times he's wished for something, and the many times it didn't work.





	Stolen Time

“If you could wish for _anything_ in the _whole wide world,_ what would you wish for?”

For a younger Scanlan, it was simple. To his mother, he said sincerely, ‘I wish for you to be happy’. Juniper had smiled, then, and kissed her son on the forehead, squeezing him tight. And sure, they were poor, and they had to work hard for the life they lead, but Juniper had always been happy - for she had a wonderful son who loved her enough to wish her happiness.

He’s unsure still if this is true, or merely something he wished was true, but he liked to think she died happy, too.

He went through many stages of wishing back his old life. Wishing back his mother, wishing back the quiet mornings out by the well, where it was just him and his flute and a few copper coins.

But now - now he’s turning 18, it’s been a decade and his mother is still dead, he’s still dirt poor, he has no friends, and home is a far-off dream. Wishes are for people who have hope, who have something to strive for - wishes weren’t for people like Scanlan Shorthalt.

 

He’s twenty-two, the first time he gets drunk. Drunk, meaning absolutely shitfaced. Sure, he’d been tipsy - he’d been drinking since he was 12 (but don’t tell his mother). But now, he was sat in a dingy old bar with a travelling troupe that had picked him up a couple years back, and he’s hammered.

It’s easier to talk when drunk. Well - that’s a lie, talking is piss easy for Scanlan ‘i can talk my way out of a dragon’s ass’ Shorthalt. What’s easier is talking about himself. When drunk, that is. So, when a young human man comes and sits beside him and orders an equally large mug of ale, Scanlan eyes him up for a few moments, before shuffling his stool a bit closer and beginning some kind of drunken conversation.

Despite some initial awkwardness, they spend a good hour or so chatting away, probably both too drunk to remember anything the next morning. But, if Scanlan remembered anything from that night, it wasn’t his face, but a snippet of a passing comment.

“If you could wish for anything, what would it be?”

The human wished for glory, riches, fame. He was a warrior, of sorts.

“That’d be great,” Scanlan replied. “I think… I’d wish for… Love, perhaps? Yeah. Love would be nice.” 

The human looks incredulous for a moment, but agrees, in the end. Love - or at the very least, the second best thing.

 

He had to admit, when he was young, the thought of getting in a bar brawl had never crossed his mind - but here we are. 36 years old, and can’t walk into a bar without leaving with a black eye or a bloody nose for the life of him.

He’s drunk, of course. That first time had turned into many firsts, and even more ‘one last times’. Now, he couldn’t remember the last time he was sober.

He doesn’t get angry often. In fact - he can count the list of things that make him irrevocably angry on his left hand. It’s just that, well, one of those things is. Well. Giant assholes.

He feels the wind get knocked out of him by a huge leather boot, and practically snarls back at the face of his attacker. “Yeah? Well I _wish you’d just shut up_.” he spits, stepping over the wreckage of a chair that had been smashed previously. His eyes flicker angrily with arcane energy, and with a _BANG_ , a giant, purple hand has smashed someone through the wall of the tavern.

He takes a moment to triumphantly stand above the carnage, before he’s pulled away by his troupe, and they don’t return to that town for years.

He leaves the troupe, shortly after that.

They’re sad to see him go, in the way that employers are when their employee leaves. Or perhaps that’s just how he feels? After all, Scanlan was never good at knowing what other people are thinking, or feeling. It’s annoying, at times - but others, he realises he just doesn’t care.

 

He’s good enough of a musician now that he can take care of himself. There’s nothing that Scanlan Shorthalt cannot do - or so they say. He’s 40. A pivotal year for a gnome, one that he can only imagine his mother would be eagerly awaiting if she were still here.

For a moment, he entertains the fantasy. Crudely made decorations, a simple yet carefully made cake, a present that Juniper had worked so hard to pay for - one that Scanlan would promptly promise to repay her for in the future. Or maybe, just a hug, a kiss on the forehead, a ‘congratulations’.

Congratulations for what, staying alive? He wonders briefly if you could call what he’s doing ‘living’.

Instead, his birthday is spent sat in a room in a tavern, tuning and retuning his instruments, watching the sun rise and fall from the window. Getting drunk, as always.

A voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like his mother asks him what his birthday wish is - and he politely tells it to go fuck off.

Later, when he's a little drunker, and a little lonelier, he lays fully dressed on top of his bed, and wonders what he would actually wish for.

Truthfully, he doesn't know.

Maybe fame.

Yeah, fame sounds good.

 

His addiction to drinking was quickly followed by an addiction to brothels.. followed by a devastating loss of money.

It didn't matter, really. He had enough to eat, fuck, and sleep - what could go wrong?

He's 53, when it happens.

‘It’, being something he wouldn't find out about for another 16 odd years.

Still, he's sat with a mug of ale, twisting tales and weaving wonderous adventures, to a young Gnomish lass named Sybil. She laughs at all his jokes, and asks questions, and seems genuinely interested in him which - is not something he's very used to, to tell the truth.

“So…” Sybil says quietly, as they're laying half asleep on her bed, “if you could wish for one thing… what would it be?” She smiles shyly and looks away, before saying “I wish this moment would last forever.”

It takes him a while - but he's already ten feet out the door when he says “ _I wish I had some freedom._ ” 

 

He thought meeting The Shits would be something pivotal. He thought something might change, now he had six other people to share the burden of mindless wandering with - but it didn’t. If anything, it made it worse.

A good amount of his travels with The Shits, (now vox machina, but they’re still shits), he’d spent just as uncertain and unsure as he had the rest of his life.

Their first (but definitely not their last) time drinking together was probably one of the best drinking experiences he’d had in a long while. He’s a little tipsy, everything was soft and blurry round the edges, and he listened quietly to the rest of them chatter away.

It made him feel old. These kids - they were less than half his age, and the funny thing is, most of them seem far more put together than he ever was.

He isn't much older, comparatively - and he isn't sure what it is that makes his friends assume he is.

They'd just saved a small town from a strange curse, and were drinking to celebrate what were probably a series of flukes and near-deaths, rather than a plan and a well earned victory. Scanlan simply listens with a smile, and orders another drink.

One of the twins - the male one, he's yet to be able to differentiate between their similar names - sits himself down beside him and takes a long, long sip of ale, before letting out a drawn out sigh and turning to face him.

“Hey.”

Scanlan is too drunk to make civil conversation, apparently - but Vex (or Vax, he isn't sure), studies him for a moment, before opening his mouth.

“Say you got one wish. What would it be?”

Scanlan gives him an incredulous look, before taking another gulp of ale.

“Well, i’d wish for (family, friends) fortune, of course. Maybe more (love, intimacy) sex,” and he revels in the way lying has become second nature to him. The thrill of knowing what he says goes and nobody can tell any different. His wall, carefully and meticulously constructed with a smile and a wink and a few bad jokes.

 

He's 70, and surprisingly, walls can come crashing down. They come down far, far easier than he'd realised. He bites back the angry words on his lips, but as he leaves frustrated and upset, he can't help but let the words _I wish I'd never met them_ fight to escape his mouth.

It’s a lie, though.. Meeting them was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

There’s a series of moments, later on, within his year away where he was angry. Others where he was sad. Most of the time, he found, he was just tired. In the midst of running a business he didn’t have time to think, or feel, or breathe, really. But when Lionel came back with news of a giant black ball and a strange sounding cult, Scanlan could feel himself being called back to battle. Back to where he belonged. Back to them.

He wished, dearly, that they would let him back in.

Or maybe he wished they’d treat him the way he deserved. Maybe, he didn’t want to be let back in - he wanted to prove to himself that he was right. That after all this time, they never cared. Not really.

 

Time flew by like a flash - his friends’ anger soon faded away to a feeling of mutual desperation, to kill this thing or lock it away where it could do no more harm. He wonders if, perhaps, they’d waited and planned and prepared, everything would’ve turned out differently. For the better, maybe.

Instead, they rushed in.

Instead, they lose, regardless.

A million different scenarios run through his head - he’s good at thinking ahead, of coming up with solid plans that for the most part work - but there has to be something wrong when every single scenario involves one of your best friends dying from matters out of your control.

He hated it.

He hated not being able to control the situation, even from afar. Everything was out of his hands, now, and there was nothing - nothing - he could do about it.

Except, maybe there was?

He hears his mother’s voice again, asking him softly what he would wish for, if he could? And now - now he knows. 

The battle fills him with adrenaline in a way that no battle had before. This was it. He remembers Kaylie, and his mother, and his troupe and everyone, everywhere he’d ever had a part in saving, and he promises silently that he’ll do it again. For them, for him, for his friends.

And then, there’s a choice.

He glances up at Vax, all bloodied and bruised and desperate, and back at Vecna, who he could tell, was about to cast a spell. He was escaping. His chest tightened with a dawning realisation - his energy wasn’t enough. He had to use the last of it to… to save everyone else, right? Vax, or the world.

It’s hard, to make choices like that. Especially when the person in question means the world to you anyway.

“Is it… Is it worth it?” he chokes out, and Vax looks at him oddly for a moment.

“To keep him here? Yeah, of course it is!”

He nods, takes a deep breath. And readies a counterspell.

Vax, or the world.

“...I’m sorry, Vax.”

And he swears, as he casts, even though he’s turned away and his vision is full of arcane energy - he swears he can see Vax's smile.

 

The last time he drinks to get drunk is also, probably, the last. They grab a table, order a round for everyone in the bar, and quite frankly he’s happy to succumb to passing out from all the alcohol. He recalls, wistfully,, the first time they drank. They were younger, less aware of the dangers of the world. Fresh-faced and mostly eager adventurers.

He’s drunk, as are his family. They toast to a fallen brother, and while he’s dazed and staring into his cup, he smiles, softly. “I wish you well, friend.”

And if Vax had asked him now - he wouldn't wish for fortune, he wouldn't wish for fame, or even a home. He wishes, simply, for time. More time. All the time, in the whole wide world, as long as Vax was around to experience it with him.

Later, he sits on his bed and stares up at the window - a ritual he would do often, from then on. “I wish,” he says, pleading, _“I wish, I wish,”_

_But wishes had never really worked, had they?_


End file.
